We pulled today’s planned review because, well, there is huge news in the world of technology. Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of NVIDIA, marking the end of an era.
In a brief press release published by NVIDIA a bit before 6:00am PT, the company announced that Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, has resigned from the company effective immediately. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Colette Kress, NVIDIA’s current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, while the company undertakes a search for a permanent CEO.
Jensen Huang’s Resignation
Officially, NVIDIA and its board have not commented on why Huang is resigning. However, the NVIDIA leader and his reputation have been very publicly impaired in recent weeks by the allegations of multiple extramarital affairs with significant geopolitical considerations. The first of which involved a Chinese citizen, and attracted the attention of the US government due to concerns over Huang being the target of a foreign intelligence effort. That affair was confirmed by Huang and the company on Sunday, when Huang sent out an email to the company apologizing for his actions.
The events behind that letter had already spurred NVIDIA’s Board of Directors to initiate an independent investigation, with the company hiring Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and former acting U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim to lead the investigation.
More recently, yesterday the New York Times reported on a second affair. This one involved an NVIDIA employee, Kimberly Powell, who is NVIDIA’s Vice President of Health Care. Following that news story, media reports indicated that NVIDIA’s Board of Directors held a same-day meeting to discuss the fate of Huang and the company.
But whatever the underpinning reasons, the situation has escalated to the point where Huang is resigning from NVIDIA, effective immediately. And with it, NVIDIA’s Board is taking a number of steps to ensure the continuity and stability of the company.
For the time being, NVIDIA’s CFO Colette Kress will be stepping up to lead the company on an interim basis. Kress has been a steady hand at NVIDIA for over a decade, though with a primary focus on financial matters for the rapidly growing company. NVIDIA is due to report its Q3’2027 earnings next week on Tuesday, November 17th, a call that Kress will now lead.
Meanwhile, the NVIDIA Board is initiating a search for a permanent CEO to replace Huang. With Huang having no clearly-defined successor within NVIDIA, the Board has stated that they will be looking at candidates from both inside and outside of the company.
Huang’s resignation has also triggered the Board to appoint a chairperson for the first time in its history. Harvey C. Jones, a Managing Partner at Square Wave Ventures and formerly the CEO of Synopsys, will serve as the Chair of the Board.
Replacing a Singular Leader
Jensen Huang’s resignation leaves NVIDIA in the position of trying to replace a CEO who has been a singular leader for NVIDIA since its inception. As one of NVIDIA’s co-founders (and the only still involved in the business), Huang has been with the company since its beginning and been at the center of defining the company’s vision. Huang well-known for his hands-on management style, which saw him operate with over 60 direct reports and a very centralized management structure with him at the top. This has allowed Huang to take the company in the direction he wants to go – and make risky bets on things like CUDA and automotive – but it means that his unplanned resignation leaves a large hole in NVIDIA’s managerial structure.
Looking to ensure the stability of the company, the NVIDIA Board has already stated that it has “full confidence in Colette and the leadership team,” and that they “expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.” Meanwhile in her first comment as NVIDIA’s CEO, Peters has stated that under her watch, NVIDIA “will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader.”
And whatever the circumstances are behind Huang’s resignation, publicly the company is parting with Huang on friendly terms. The announcement from the company included a brief comment thanking Jensen “for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.”
With that said, it is difficult to imagine who will – or even could – take the reins from Jensen to serve as the company’s new leader. While Patrick is out on assignment this week, I pinged him for his thoughts on the matter, which he summed up rather succinctly: “Jensen is a singular leader in the industry who made a big bet on, and then inspired the industry to develop the current advancements in AI. These will not be easy shoes for NVIDIA to fill.”
Similarly, I have covered NVIDIA’s wares for 21 years and periodically met with Huang for almost as long. NVIDIA has always been Jensen’s company, for both the good and the bad that come with a having a strong-but-demanding leader at the top. A Steve Jobs comparison might be apt here, but even as a co-founder himself, Jobs was never quite so heavily integrated into Apple like Huang is at NVIDIA. Though both were visionaries for their respective industries, which means that recent events have not just cost NVIDIA their leader, but the AI and graphics industries are similarly losing one of their biggest driving forces.
Final Words
The sheer speed of the events surrounding Jensen Huang’s resignation mean that even with today’s announcement, a lot of questions remain. More than just who will replace Huang as the permanent CEO, what kind of changes will they enact at NVIDIA as they eventually make their own mark on the company? Will Huang’s departure eventually bring about a change to NVIDIA’s dual focus on hardware and software, which has come in large part due to having a both a business-savvy and highly-capable engineer at the top? And how will this impact the AI industry, which NVIDIA’s modern fortune is built from, and which NVIDIA is currently the de facto leader of?
Answers will undoubtedly be slower to arrive than the turmoil that surrounds Huang’s departure. But as the company’s investigations move forward and the Board winnows down the field to find a new CEO, those answers will arrive. Replacing Jensen Huang will be an incredibly difficult task, but in the wide field of talent in Silicon Valley, there is someone out there who will be up to the challenge.
